It is surprising that your case took 7 months to get approval.
As far as I know, several colleagues of mine got approval for OR in less than 2 months in NSC last year. Even early this year, at least some cases just took 2 months to get approval, for example one of my frined and the friend of eb1Cat. My impression is that NSC slows down a lot. It might depend on the luck. ... Life is cruel.